h the beat of the sea, the wail of the wind,
and Thomas Jefferson Brown sitting there as if nothing were happening,
that Lady Isobel just stared in astonishment, while the water gushed in
about her. At last he put down his paddle, and stretched out both hands;
and it seemed the most natural thing in the world that her two hands
should come out to meet his.

"Listen," he said, and his eyes were telling her again what they told
her on the day when he brought her in from the York boat. "You'll do as
I tell you, won't you? And you won't be afraid?"

For an instant Lady Isobel looked at Lord Meton, shrinking and shivering
in the stern of the canoe; and then she looked back to the other man's
face, and blue fires seemed to leap into her eyes.

"With _you_--no, I'm not afraid," she said.

She leaned toward him, nearer and nearer, as the water rose about them,
looking straight into his eyes. They both knew in that moment that it
was the man and the woman who had triumphed, and that for them the lady
and the gentleman were dead.

"I'm not afraid--with you," she said again.

Her lips trembled, and her golden hair swept over his breast, and Thomas
Jefferson Brown bent down and kissed her once upon the mouth. Then he
said, as if he were speaking to a little girl:

"Do not be afraid, and hold to the edge of the canoe when it fills. The
wind will carry us to Harrison's Island."

He turned to Lord Meton, and repeated the words; and just then the
birchbark began to settle under them. With one hand gripping the side,
Thomas Jefferson Brown leaped over the sea. Lower and lower settled the
canoe with almost a scream, Lord Meton cried above the wind:

"Good Lord, it won't hold us up!"

For a few moments Thomas Jefferson relieved the canoe of his weight, and
the bark rose again, slowly. Then, with a gasp, he clutched at the side
again, and into Lady Isobel's drenched face, half hid the wet veil of
her shining hair.

"The canoe won't hold us all up," he said trying to smile. "But it will
hold two--you two and the wind is taking it to the island, four miles to
the island, and I may be make it."

He knew that he never could make it; no man could swim so far in the
chill waters of Hudson Bay; but he spoke as if his words were "I'm going
to let go and try. Isobel, my love, will you kiss me?"

She threw one arm about his neck. Meton, clutching with frantic terror
to the canoe saw nothing of what happened, nor did he hear the sobbin